


incandescence

by whiteautumn



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, minor gore if anyone's bothered, tags updated as i go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteautumn/pseuds/whiteautumn
Summary: A collection of short one-shots, WIPs, ficlets that don't ever go anywhere (but I want it to?), removed scenes etc.one. the law of inertia (i) - Playmaker goes missing, and Ryouken isn't coping too well.





	incandescence

**Author's Note:**

> The first line of the summary says it all, really. I haven't caught up on VRAINS at all and real life has been oddly stressful (without anything big happening too hm, interesting) because my self-depreciation tendencies reared their ugly heads and are hindering my grad school applications. Fun. I'd love to be able to apply to schools without the voice telling me I can't get in. Thank you, brain. 
> 
> Hence why Ryouken is a mess in this chapter. Why this piece is a mess. Because I'm a mess right now lol. (Guess what, there's a continuation to this mess too!)
> 
> Updates for _guidance_ will not resume until June, at the earliest. Before y'all kill me, I have a legit reason for it. I'm going to Greece for holidays in June, which would provide me with the perfect visuals and references I need for the scenes in the upcoming chapters. I _could_ use google images, but since I'll be setting foot into the actual place, why settle with 2D? I will hopefully be writing other things in the meantime. Fingers crossed. (Also, I don't believe my mental state's too good for any kind of fluff writing right now. Um.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _inertia: the tendency of an object to stay at rest or in motion_
> 
> Canon Divergence/What-if: Lightning gets to Playmaker before the Mirror Link VRAINS arc?

It takes a second for Ryouken to register that the sun had risen.

What came first, however, was the unrelenting glare of pink and orange dashes of light against his eyes. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He lifts heavy eyelids to look out at the calm morning waves of Stardust Road.

The water plays a dim, slow melody in his ears. Whether they mocked or pitied him, Ryouken knows not.

What he knows, however, is that his once-safe haven as a child no longer induces any kind of comfort in him.

He doesn’t get up from the floor, couldn’t master the energy to, and he can’t remember when he had blacked out the night before. Or why. It could’ve been the exhaustion kicking in, Ryouken stubbornly refusing to go to bed even after Kyouko’s naggings and Spectre’s explicit voicing of his worries.

Or it could be the monster clawing at his chest, screaming and crying, guilt and worry eating up his very being. A monster that Ryouken thought he had hunted down ruthlessly and buried deep within him, something that will never see daylight again, alongside _other things_ …

Other things, like Ryouken’s treachery, coloured in shades of wisteria in his dreams.

His laptop screen is dark when he turns his head to stare at it, plastic reflecting his disheveled hair and shadowed eyes. The device emits a constant low hum, almost undetectable against the splashing water against the cliffs. He heaves out a soft breath, soothed by the mechanic sound – ignoring the irony – at the presence of it. It is what’s going to help him, after all.

Playmaker has been missing for a week, now.

He vividly remembers the day the Flame and Dark Ignises and Soulburner had all but commanded him to meet with them in Link VRAINS, the hot-tempered duelist marching right up to him and demanded to know where Playmaker was because neither Soulburner or Playmaker’s ally could find him in the virtual world and _Ai can’t feel him anymore_ –

Soulburner’s eyes had been wide and full of scorching anger, but Ryouken understood how that anger had masked the fear within – fear that had struck him the same moment he saw the Dark Ignis without its Origin.

Fujiki Yuusaku’s unmoving body had escalated that feeling, when Ryouken had snuck into the hospital where the boy was being monitored in and saw his rival silently asleep, his breaths light and rest – if they could call it that – undisturbed by the demons that haunted him as much as they did Ryouken.

He hasn’t gotten any proper rest since then – because despite how he claimed to stand against the younger boy, seeing Yuusaku so vulnerable like this and knowing his consciousness is out there somewhere had revived all those monsters Ryouken had long buried.

It has been a week – seven days, a hundred and sixty-eight hours of self-blame, fear, and desperation because Ryouken had been keeping tabs on Yuusaku himself so how could he have not detected Playmaker’s disappearance?

Once again, Ryouken has made a mistake.

And once again, quite possibly, Yuusaku’s the one paying for it.

It had been easy to deduce who – or what – the culprit had been, however. The Light and Wind Ignises had been oddly quiet, while SOL had continued to operate normally – as far as Ryouken knows, they are still working on the Earth Ignis’s data so far – so it hadn’t been that far of a leap to conclude that the Light Ignis had been behind Playmaker’s abduction.

Which means Ryouken is running very short on time. He doesn’t think about what the Light Ignis could want with Playmaker – a can of worms that he’ll never touch if he wanted to stay sane – choosing to focus on finding them and getting Yuusaku back. 

The pressing and feeling of being suffocated remains, even as he lies prone on the cold floors of his mansion. They’ve been back for a week now. It was easier to work from land and they had more resources. Ryouken feels the chilly bite of the white marble against his fingertips, spreading across his back, the top of his head, the back of his legs.

For a moment, he thinks Playmaker might be dead, Yuusaku’s consciousness deleted by Lightning, and perhaps Ryouken is being punished by the other for his inability to save him through that accursed bond of theirs. But Yuusaku would never do that, so maybe it’s whatever deity out there, the same one that had tied them together, that’s dealing the punishment.

Whatever scraps of rest he takes are plagued by the dead struggling to escape from within, ripping and breaking him from the inside, their nails lacerating Ryouken’s beating heart, thick trails of red pouring down. A younger Yuusaku’s always there, cherubic facial features no longer bright like the day Ryouken first met him, green eyes sullen and dim, hands dyed with blood and he would _always_ say –

Something Ryouken can never catch. He doesn’t need to. Yuusaku blames him, that is the only thing that is justified in their pathetic ruin of a relationship.

His father appears in different renditions. Sometimes Ryouken sees him wrapping his hands around tiny Yuusaku’s tiny neck and squeezing. Yuusaku cries out in those moments, a shaky, bloody hand reaching out towards Ryouken and Ryouken can only watch silently, his voice mute, his limbs tied down and feeling heavier than lead, as the boy stops struggling, eyes cloudy throughout. Other times, he joins the cluster of dead that mauls relentlessly at him, hands as red as Yuusaku’s, and he willingly lets them tear him apart, never running.

Ryouken never wakes up screaming. Nothing escapes him when he wakes – there is no cold sweating, no shortage of breaths, no rapid heartbeats. The demons have made their home in him, a familiar presence that he has become accustomed to. He can’t remember not seeing them anymore.

Something always ties him down, ice cold and heavy.

He wants to stay this way, to just remain here, lying in this very room where his father had died, where he had failed to be a good son and fulfil his father’s wishes and where he had been reunited with his destiny. He wants to be haunted by his mistakes, because at least he’ll be able to see Yuusaku, see his father –

This isn’t going to help, however. Closing his eyes, he clenches his hands into fists and pushes himself up into a sitting position, shaking away the white tresses falling in his eyes. He looks up and winces at the bright rays from the horizon – the sun had fully risen, and the skies a fair blue.

Ryouken needs to move, to destroy the Ignises, to save Yuusaku.

Even when everything in him is screaming that he deserves to drown in his sins.

The world doesn’t need any more of Kougami Ryouken’s mistakes, but the Ignises still need their executioner.

_And maybe, just maybe, Fujiki Yuusaku still needs Kougami Ryouken._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to think Canon!Ryouken is very driven, but tbh he probably spent three months moping before jailbreaking Kyouko. I really doubt that kid who'd once cried and saved Yuusaku could grow up to not be weighed down by his insecurities and all those losses. So, yeah, this. 
> 
> Kudos/Comments greatly appreciated! I know I haven't been around and I have missed everyone! :( So, uh, talk to me, maybe? :)


End file.
